Prophet of Israel

“ Israel will then realize that the prophet like unto Moses has come. They will hear Him in all things, and He will prove to be their great deliverer, the one king that shall be king over all; and they shall never be divided into two nations any more at all. ”

“ The days of reckoning have come. Israel will consider the prophet to be a fool, and the man who is inspired to be insane, because of the abundance of your sins, and because your hostility is great. 8 A prophet watches over Ephraim with my God.
A fowler’s snare is on all of his paths, and hostility in the house of his God. 9 They have deeply corrupted themselves,
as in the days of Gibeah. He will remember their iniquity. He will punish them for their sins. 10 I found Israel like grapes in the wilderness. ”

“ The servant Israel is called to be a witness to all the nations, faithfully to set forth Jehovah's teachings until his law is established in all the earth. Thus the prophet interprets Israel's past, present, and future in its vital relation to the universal life of humanity, and declares that Israel is destined to be a prophet nation and to reveal Jehovah's character to all mankind. ”

“ Other peoples, however, had their crises and yet had no such message as did the Israelites. What made the crises in the history of the Israelites richly fruitful in ethical and spiritual truth was the presence within their midst of certain devoted, responsive teachers, and especially the prophets, who guided them in their time of peril, interpreted its significance, and appealed to the awakened conscience of the nation. Like begets like. At the beginning of Israel's history stands the great prophet Moses, and during the long centuries that followed the voice of the prophets was rarely hushed. ”

“ Israel had thus, from the outset of its history, been associated and identified with Iahvah; however ill the true nature of the tie has been understood, however unworthily the relation has been conceived by the popular mind, however little the obligations involved in the call of their fathers have been recognised and appreciated. God must be true, though man be false. There is no weakness, no caprice, no [Pg 307] vacillation in God. In bygone "times of trouble" the "Hope of Israel" had saved Israel over and over again; it was a truth admitted by all—even by the prophet's enemies. ”

“ Now the prophet, to illustrate the zeal for Jehovah and His truth which shall then characterise converted and regenerated Israel, supposes such a case. Even if it should be their own son who should presumptuously " prophesy," either to entice them from their allegiance to Jehovah or to spread error in His Name, his own parents will not spare or pity him ”

“ Numerous are the prophecies relating to the return of Israel from the land of the north, and other parts of the earth, into which they were driven in the day of their rebellion and apostasy; [3] but it occurred to no one that before these prophecies could be fulfilled Israel's great prophet, Moses, who held the keys of the dispensation pertaining to the gathering of Israel, must come and give to men the authority to proceed with that work. The moment he appears, however, and gives such authority, the propriety of it, the fitness of it is apparent. ”

“ The prophet, having received of the Lord that which he was to deliver to the people, now turns to God, and again addresses himself to him for the ease of his own mind under the burden which he saw. And still he is full of complaints. If he look about him, he sees nothing but violence done by Israel; if he look before him, he sees nothing but violence done against Israel ”

“ Looking forward to the time when the Jewish people will be delivered from the power of Nebuchadnezzar and the Assyrian nation, and of their conquest by some other power, the prophet, aroused by a prophetic spirit, announces that the time is coming when Israel shall again be free: "But thou, Bethlehem Ephratah, though thou be little among the thousands of Judah, yet opt of thee shall he come forth unto me that is to be ruler in Israel; whose goings forth have been from of old, from everlasting. ”

“ Israel now is " without an ephod." As they are without a king and a priest, so it is also the time of God's long silence, and in ignorance of the cause they continue to cry out, " Why withdrawest
28 THE INTERREGNUM AND "AFTERWARD"
Thou Thy hand ? O God, how long shall the adversary reproach ? . . . We see not our signs ; there is no more any prophet, neither is there among us any that knoweth how long" (Psa. Ixxiv. 9-11) . Yes, there is neither sound nor hearing, nor is there one among them who can tell what Israel ought to do. ”

“ It is implied that this was the case with [Pg 168] each successive generation, and the view of Israel's history thus expressed is in perfect harmony with common experience. Progress, one way or the other, is the law of character; if we do not advance in goodness, we go back, or, what is the same thing, we advance in evil.
Finally, the prophet is warned that his mission also must fail, like that of his predecessors, unless indeed the second clause of ver. 27, which is omitted by the Septuagint, be really an interpolation. ”

“ Though those nations will not worship him as their God, yet they shall be made to know that they are accountable to him as their Judge. The God of Israel is the God of the whole earth, and has something to say to them that shall make them tremble. Against them the Lord roars out of Zion. And before God, by the prophet, threatens Israel and Judah, he denounces judgments against those nations whom he made use of as scourges to them for their being so, which might serve for a check to their pride and insolence and a relief to his people under their dejections ”

“ Who it is that gives judgment upon them: Thus saith the Holy One of Israel. That title of God which they particularly excepted against the prophet makes use of. Faithful ministers will not be driven from using such expressions as are proper to awaken sinners, though they be displeasing. We must tell men that God is the Holy One of Israel, and so they shall find him, whether they will hear or whether they will forbear. ”

“ It may be, of course, that for the moment our prophet feels that this frequent experience of individuals in Israel is to be realised by the faithful Israel, as a whole, in their treatment by the rest of their cruel and unspiritual countrymen. But the very fact that individuals have previously fulfilled this martyrdom in the history of Israel, surely makes it possible for our prophet to foresee, that the Servant, who is to fulfil it again, shall also be an individual. ”

“ There is an exact correspondence in this respect between the large movement of redemption, taken as a whole, and the enactment of its principles on a smaller scale within the history of Israel. As the second Adam is greater than the first, and the paradise of the future fairer than that of the past, so the new-born Israel to the prophet's vision is a nobler figure and exists under far more favorable conditions than the empirical Israel of before. Once its Peniel-night is over, it will live in the light and feed upon the goodness of God, and be beautified through its religious embrace of Him. ”

“ Israel himself, with all his inconsistent qualities, becomes the absorbing subject of the prophet’s meditations. The section opens with a soliloquy of the “Servant of Yahweh,” which leads on to a glorious comforting discourse, “Can a woman forget her sucking child,” &c. ”

“ To these two classes of his contemporaries the prophet has the following answers. God does love Israel. He is worshipped everywhere among the heathen. He is the Father of all Israel. He will bless His people when they put away all abuses from their midst and pay their religious dues; and His Day of Judgment is coming, when the good shall be separated from the wicked. But before it come, Elijah the prophet will be sent to attempt the conversion of the wicked, or at least to call the nation to decide for Jehovah. ”

“ The people of the Lord are to become glorious, and to be the source of salvation to all mankind. They will suffer at the hand of the nations, but the latter will ultimately see what wrong they have done to Israel. Notwithstanding all apparent obstacles, this prophecy will be fulfilled.
(9.) lv. to lx.—The prophet exhorts the people to follow the word of God, to abandon idolatry, and to be sincere in their prayer and repentance; only then might they hope for salvation. God has punished Israel, but the redeemer will come unto Zion. ”

“ In view of this, the prophet addresses mankind, saying, "All the inhabitants of the world and dwellers on the earth, tremble, when he lifteth up an ensign on the mountains; and when he bloweth a trumpet, shall hear." The ensign being planted on the mountains of Israel by Britain, the Lord will cause the Assyrian Autocrat to "blow a trumpet," summoning the hosts of his nations to war; for He has said, "I will bring thee, O Gogue, against my land." ”

“ The historical and prophetical books and the Pentateuch are wholly concerned with the nation. For them Israel is the centre of the world, the point around which all other things revolv¢%every other people derives its claim to consideration from its relation to Israelthe only subject deserving attention is the extent of the Jewish nation's obedience or disobedience to its divinely given law, on which depends its prosperity or its adversity. In Proverbs there is a notable absence of this point of view. The name Israel and the terms temple, prophet, priest, covenant, do not occur in the book. ”

“ The last seven verses of the pth chapter (to which the whole of the I oth chapter is linked) set forth in fuller detail the results of the advent and mission of the Redeemer- King, more particularly in relation to Israel nationally. The prophet had spoken of Messiah in the loth verse, as the One who would also " speak peace to the (Gentile) nations," whose dominion would extend even " to the ends of the earth " ; now he turns again to Zion and Israel. " ”

“ Israel has been without the true God and a teaching priest, and in those times there was no peace. But the dimness threatened (ch. viii. 22) shall not prevail to such a degree; for (v. 2) the people that walked in darkness have seen a great light. (1.) At this time when the prophet lived, there were many prophets in Judah and Israel, whose prophecies were a great light both for direction and comfort to the people of God, who adhered to the law and the testimony. Besides the written word, they had prophecy ”

“ As an amplification of this threatening, the prophet enumerates a series of afflictions which were to befall her to bring her to a sense of her duty to God; and of her folly in seeking after idols, and falsely ascribing to them the blessings of Providence, [86] . After these corrections, however, God promises to conduct Israel safely to their own land; perhaps alluding to their restoration from the Babylonish captivity, for this prophecy is supposed to have been delivered about two hundred and fifty years prior to this event, [87] , [88] . ”

“ In the dark watches of the night, when the waves ran highest and the heavens were obscured as with a pall, he felt that he had that within his soul beckoning him on, more brilliant in its coruscations than the starry cross that illumines the southern hemisphere, as unerring in its guidance as the beacon which of old led the children of Israel through the pathless desert—implicit belief in the sublimity of his mission, and an entire reliance on the mercy of his Creator, in whose hands he felt himself an humble instrument for the accomplishment of noble ends. ”

“ And He will deliver us, if not by removing the burden, by sending an angel from heaven to strengthen us to endure it, so that we shall be able all the more to glorify Him. But, though there is this general principle in this passage applicable to the saints of God in all ages, it has primary and special significance in relation to Israel at the climax of their national history, and is in strict harmony with all the rest of this sublime prophecy which deals with the great events of the time of the end. ”

“ This world is an ante-chamber to the next.
The just of all nations have a portion in the future reward.
Every nation has its special guardian angel, its horoscopes, its ruling planets and stars. But there is no planet for Israel. Israel shall look but to God. There is no mediator between those who are called His children and their Father which is in heaven. ”

“ What nobler distinction could have been conferred upon any race of men than that they should have been thus chosen, as Israel actually was chosen, not merely in the aspirations of prophets, but as a matter of fact in the divinely-directed evolution of human history, to become the heralds of a higher truth, the hierophants of spiritual knowledge, the universally recognised interpreters of God? ”

“ Give me leave, at such a juncture of time, to speak to your Highnesse, in a style and manner fitting to us Jewes and our condition. It is a thing most certaine, that the great God of Israel, Creator of Heaven and Earth, doth give and take away Dominions and Empires, according to his owne pleasure; exalting some, and overthrowing others: who, seeing he hath the hearts of Kings in his hand, he easily moves them whithersoever himselfe pleaseth, to put in execution his Divine Commands. ”

“ How great is thy Lord, O Israel! There is no being who can say to Him, 'Do this!' there is no womb which could have given birth to Him. He created the bottomless deeps above which He moves when He wishes. He brings light out of darkness, and from the dust of the earth He creates living things which have voices. ”